Should Tiger be the Favorite for the 2013 Open Championship?
You be the judge: Tiger played with pain in his elbow at Merion and will go into the Muirfield Open without having played much competitive golf in between. Can he win, should he be the favorite. YOU be the judge, with an informed opinion. Below are screen shots from a three month old video. His right side drops so much (right trunk lateral flexion), that post-impact his left shoulder goes into internal rotation (a bit of a chicken-wing, one might say), which, because both hands are locked onto the club (closed kinetic chain) forces the left wrist into extension (bending backwards).
All of this conspires to put pressure on the outside (lateral side) of his left elbow - the muscles, tendons or ligaments can be subject to strain/sprain. It is criminal how all of us golf teachers are let loose on the world with not one iota of human movement training. Someone should sue someone, seriously. (see my ‘walking the talk’ piece on knee injury and how Butch Harmon TOLD Tiger to quickly rotate his left knee out of the way and then straighten it up (or so I read in Hank Haney’s book)! In the same article see what Tom Watson tells people to do with the right knee - exactly the movement which caused Fred Funk’s right knee replacement from osteoarthritis of the outer (lateral) side of his right knee!